birthday

Happy Birthday Oskar Aage Sonnenberg Petersen!

Twenty one years ago today, my oldest son was born and I had to stop smoking in the house. My wife Susan and I were actually expecting a baby girl, thanks to several eerie, wienerless ultrasound images taken a couple months earlier. But as it turned out, Oskar had been tucking. I witnessed his birth. He was almost born during an episode of The Fugitive, starring David Janssen (one of my all-time favorite TV shows), but when 4pm rolled around and our little groundhog hadn’t peeked out of his hole yet, I quickly changed the channel to Star Trek so Oskar could be born during episode 18, “The Squire of Gothos.” I felt a little faint at my first glimpse of him—instead of a human face with eyes and a nose and a mouth, there was only smooth skin. But that turned out to be the top of his head; he actually did have a face and also, much to our surprise, a wiener. And then a bunch of other stuff happened, and then he turned into a 21-year-old man. He’s taller, better looking and funnier than I am. We’re going to see the Kurt Vile show together on Friday, if anybody wants to buy him a drink. Happy birthday, Oskar!